Geoff Flood Reflects On T4G’s Legacy And The Future Of Data And Tech In Atlantic Canada
SAINT JOHN — The co-founder of New Brunswick headquartered data services technology company T4G is proud of his company’s accomplishments over the last 20 years. But Geoff Flood says the region still has to do more work promoting the importance of data to the economy and society and learning how to scale the innovative products and services developed here.
Flood founded T4G back in 1996 with Michael Cottenden and David Posluns in Toronto. It started out as a retail technology company but as the new millennium arrived, it started to branch out into “business intelligence” for other sectors and moved to Saint John in 2000.
“We led with business intelligence, which is essentially data analytics, and have done so ever since,” says Flood, the former president of the company.
T4G’s focus and leadership in data analytics led to it being sold last month to Calgary-based MNP, one of Canada’s largest national accounting, tax and business consulting firms.
“It’s been my life for 25 years and I’m quite proud of what we’ve accomplished,” says Flood. “I was telling someone the other day, we had 8,901 days of T4G, and 1,200 people who have past through our doors in one way to another. We built a great culture and some great values and did great work. We’re pretty proud of that.”
The 70 T4G employees that were spread across its Saint John and Halifax offices are now part of the MNP team, including Flood, who is its Atlantic lead for the company’s tech advisory business.
“This acquisition is an opportunity to do more and at more scale and that’s really what’s exciting about it for me,” says Flood.
RELATED: T4G Acquired By Calgary-Based MNP
Flood says MNP has ambitious growth plans for Atlantic Canada, a region where up until now, it didn’t have a big footprint. He also says the acquisition gives the T4G team more “firepower” and will allow them to work with clients they may not have had the chance to before.
“For the T4Gers, we just have an opportunity to do more. We always told people that we punched above our weight. We’re small, agile, more creative than the other guys and we behaved that way and wanted to be like that,” says Flood.
“But often, for larger businesses, there’s a safety factor in buying from the major [firms]. That impediment, if it was one, has been removed. For some people, there’s comfort in a larger company. Now we can do our stuff, but we have more weight behind us.”
Though the T4G brand is gradually being replaced with “MNP,” Flood says the company leaves the legacy as one of the first to show that a company can provide world-class technology and services globally from Atlantic Canada.
“We’ve done some great work being based in Atlantic Canada for global companies. There are others that are doing it, of course, but I think it’s important to continue to make that point and to continue to deliver on that message,” says Flood.
“For me, I think that at least part of our future here rests in our ability to raise the scale of the digital industry in Atlantic Canada. It’s something we can do. It’s something we can sell around the world and we just need scale. We need to be ambitious about it.”
One of the big things T4G helped spearhead was the Big Data Congress, a national conference hosted in Atlantic Canada that attracted hundreds of people. The event aimed to make Atlantic Canada a centre of data excellence and highlight the business and economic potential of data science to transform business, government and society.
It brought leading thinkers from around the world who shared their insights into the present and future of technology and society. T4G organized the 2016 congress when it was held in Saint John.
“The general idea was to raise the level of awareness on that point. We can do this here and let’s go for it. It was a huge success and thousands of people participated in Saint John and Halifax and we’ve had movement, increased enrollment, and new programs in data and data science,” says Flood. “These things take time, but we can’t stop. I’m pretty happy about the results of that initiative and I think we need more things like that.”
What the region also needs more of is overall data literacy, Flood says. Events such as the Covid-19 pandemic highlight the need for data-backed facts more than ever to solve problems. But to many average people, the term “data” is still just a buzzword.
“I think doing what we can on many fronts to raise the level of data literacy in the region will have long-term benefits,” says Flood. “That means the general population understanding the value of facts and the ability to apply data to make things better.”
Flood also sees the opportunity for Atlantic Canada, particularly New Brunswick, to become more of a ‘digital society’ where public services would be moved to digital.
“It reduces the costs of operation, increases the level of customer services, and allows for an opportunity for the tech sector to build applications and solutions and sell them elsewhere,” says Flood.
This is something the region’s tech leaders have been pitching for a while but efforts always stalled. But Flood says Covid-19 is causing movement because governments no longer have a choice.
“It requires extreme leadership and vision on part of some of our leaders, but what’s happening just right now if a powerful understanding, a sense of urgency … we will find answers right now because we have to,” he says.
“That clears the desk of a lot of crap that takes forever … We just need to channel it to a vision that has a long-term outcome. It needs to articulated so we maximize the benefit of whatever we do.”